Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

Last summer, while working in the university archives, I wrote a post about some treasures I'd unearthed from the "archives" of my own makeup collection. In the spirit of my 2016 low-buy, I've decided to turn "From the Archives" into an ongoing, if not regular, series. Let's get better acquainted with a product I wrote about back in 2014 (yikes, those washed-out iPhone 5 photos): Maybelline Color Tattoo cream eyeshadow in Pomegranate Punk. Is there anything better than discovering an eyeshadow that forms a complete eye look on its own? Yes, in fact: discovering that eyeshadow in your very own stash, where it's languished, largely untouched, for more than two years. I often wonder how much thought goes into naming drugstore beauty products. My guess is almost none: Right, it's dark red. What else is dark red? Uh, pomegranates. Okay, let's go with "Pomegranate" something. What else begins with P? "Pretzel"? Damn, I...

To keep myself accountable to my 2016 low-buy , I've decided to do a progress report on my blog at the end of each month, recording how much I've spent on beauty, my reasons for buying each product, and whether certain moods, events, k-pop videos, etc. have affected my spending. I know January isn't over yet, but I don't plan to buy any more beauty products in the next four days, so let's round up my purchases for the month! For the price of each item, I've rounded the total to the nearest whole number but haven't included sales tax. If I order anything online in the coming months, I'll include shipping costs in the total. By the way, I also keep track of my beauty purchases on a dedicated Pinterest board , if you'd like to indulge in financial schadenfreude over there. New makeup/polish: MAC matte lipstick in Antique Velvet : $17 Floss Gloss polishes in Dinge and Dimepiece: $8 each Revlon Matte Balm in Fierce: $11 (thanks, CVS markup!) Total: $44 So...

Yesterday looked like this... (yes, I wore Cherries in the Snow in the snow) ...so I think it's a good time for another winter story: Like many girls, I grew up reading Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series. One of the most memorable chapters in the first book, "Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves," concerns the orphaned Anne Shirley's first party dress. After twelve-year-old Anne has lived with the elderly siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert for a year, Matthew has an epiphany: "Anne was not dressed like the other girls!...Marilla kept her clothed in plain, dark dresses, all made after the same unvarying pattern." The school's Christmas concert is coming up, and Matthew decides that Anne needs a dress with puffed leg-o'-mutton sleeves, the height of fashion in the mid-1890s: Augusta Auctions Suspecting that his puritanical sister will "throw cold water on his project at once," Matthew goes behind Marilla's back and e...

It occurs to me that I was a little unfair to the MakeupRehab subreddit in my resolutions post . Yes, there are a few things I dislike about that community. I don't think people should force themselves to finish or pan products they detest; all that means is that they neglect the products they do like and come to see makeup as a grim chore. Nor am I fond of the scolding, self-righteous tone of some MakeupRehab commenters, or the consumerism disguised as minimalism (obsessing over X aspect of makeup is no more virtuous than obsessing over Y aspect of makeup). But let me be clear: I'm still glad that MakeupRehab exists. It's a refreshing alternative to the YOLO BUY ALL THE THINGS mentality that exists elsewhere in the beauty blogosphere. For that matter, I'm not opposed on principle to Project Pans and the like, though I do raise an eyebrow at some people's reasons for using up products. If something is unflattering or flawed and there's no way to make it look be...

I meant to post this earlier, but life (in the form of interview prep, followed by actual interviewing, followed by jetlag) got in the way, so here we are almost halfway through January and I still haven't written about my favorite beauty purchases of 2015. But that's about to change! A few notes before we get started: Few of these are technically perfect products; they're just the products that I enjoyed the most in 2015. This list is not just for new-in-2015 products, but products that were new to me in 2015. I rarely buy limited-edition products or make a purchase before reading lots of reviews, so most of the makeup and skincare I buy has been around for at least a year or two. There are a couple of exceptions on this list, though! I've listed these products not in order of preference (I'm not sure what would make a lipstick "better" than a moisturizer) but in chronological order of purchase. In order to show how much I've used each item, I've...